BROKEN HILL and SILVERTON, NSW

2nd - 3rd AUGUST, 2012
BROKEN HILL & SILVERTON, NSW (Home of the movies, "Razorback", "Mad Max" and "A Town Like Alice" + many more....


On our way from Port Augusta, we took a detour through a private property called "Wollahra" to "Hancock's Lookout".  Boy oh boy was it windy up here too!

 Driving up to the lookout, we passed a green ford towing a van and we are nearly sure it was someone we knew from Tingha!  (Terry and Sharon)

Unfortunately, we didn't come across them again, so we will always wonder........

Greg was admiring the view to the south west.

(Sue, I know you won't believe me, but there really, really is a wedgetail eagle in this pic!!!!!)

 

This was the first decent amount of water we have seen since leaving the Southern part of WA (excluding the miles and miles of Indian Ocean, which also has a very wonderful effect on sunsets I might add).

The property here was lush and green and a real pleasure to see, with the sheep in wonderful condition, especially  for winter.

500 YEAR OLD RED RIVER GUM near Orroroo

 
The tree is thought to be over 500 yrs old and is 10.4 metres(c.34 feet) in circumference and reaches 6 metres (c.20 feet) in height before it's first branch.

RED RIVER GUM'S Next door neighbour (and home to many happy critters we were happy not to find out about!)

          Stopping in Orroroo for Morning Tea, Maggie's beckoned so we went in and instead of having a nice little coffee, we also added Carrot Cake and Bee Sting to boot.   Sooooo Nice!

 

The Council Chambers was quite a dramatic building and it was a very nice, clean and tidy town which the people have spent a lot of time looking after making for a very pleasant stop.

Now, having mentioned above what a lovely clean, neat and tidy town this was, so too was the amenities!



 Yes indeed!  So much so I could not help but take some photos (Ah and no doubt about it, it was me!)


Curtains on the toilet doors....



Kids play desks in a little room, off the hand-basin room.....

(I didn't get the disabled room sadly (it was spectacular, with benches and floor length mirror and all), because someone else came in and I didn't want to look too strange)  Stop, enough said please.


Funnily enough, when I met up with Greg back at the car I told him all about the rooms (yes, individual rooms, but no T.V.), and asked how the Gent's was.  He said it was pretty much like all gents' blocks, but it did have a sign in it "French back-packers - Please don't take the toilet paper!"

So, hanging my head in shame, I showed him the piece I had in case I needed to blow my nose on the way (I just remembered we were out of tissues!  - So, not always back-packers, hey!!!!!)

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Lookey, lookey - De Train dad!

We found strangely that the incline was a 5th gear one on this slightly more than slight rise!

 Now, in the way of Wildlife, other than feral cats, we are still only seeing these amazingly pretty birds.  Mind you, not one has had the beauty of the one we found back in Bremer Bay with it's beautifuly blue/green plumage.
(We think there may be kangaroos here though because there is some road kill around!)


Reckon since it was near some portable stock yards, it must be "emu transport" (no sign of cattle yet)



                                                    

Whoo Hoo! 

Made it to the border and didn't have to get rid of the food or plants.  (Gotta love tupperware!!!)

We arrived at  Broken Hill and set up in the Caravan Park as you come into town and got dinner underway.

3rd August 2012 (Silverton)

We headed into Silverton today and started off with a trip into the earth at Day Dream Mine.  Very authentic as it is a current working silver & lead mine. 



Oh dear, please don't let them lower me in this way!




Our guide, Kevin.

 Kevin started the tour with some horticultural insights into the medicinal values of many of the plants in the area.  The purple one below was used by the odd female in the town to colour her eyelids, but also if she used enough it blurred her vision and she couldn't see what the male population looked like!!!  The red plant on the right is still used in many pain-killers today, but if too much is taken (and back in the 1880's the miners used the plant itself, not the man-made version) IT WILL KILL YOU!!!!

                         

                                               This is how the mine shafts look when started.

Now we made our way up the hill to the top of the mine to get fitted out. 

Life size and ready to go! (Ooops, don't forget where the light switch is 'tho)

                                    Heading down, single file and don't let go of the hand-rail!!!!

Strick instructions to stay together and not to go wandering off to explore (As if......)

 

                                                          Not allowed to explore here either (not that I would want to either....)

I do believe this is a wedge (or maybe a chock??)  Why do we need to chock the rock??? Rock doesn't move, does it????????????????

Around about here Kevin tells us that these are mostly for cave-ins, and that we should not need it (Nice to know that!)

 

The emergency rations are also in case of cave-ins!!!

 At about here, we found out we had travelled a couple of hundred metres and were about 30mtrs or so down.

Greg tells me he was adjusting his head-lamp's cord because it kept catching on the battery pack and getting shortened all the time (Do you believe that?)

 Actually, it must have been true, because I was doing the same thing too,  for the same reason (so I hope the guy behind me was doing the same!!!!)


The shiny substance seen here is Galena.  This shows where to continue and wedges were subsequently used by being driven into the seams to follow the silver line for extraction till it petered out.

Here Kevin stopped us in a rather smallish large cavern to show us how things were done in the 1880's down in these mines.

 First, the candlelight.  And they used this all the time, swinging mallets onto iron posts while another person held the post hard (most gangrene cases were because of smashed thumbs and index fingers!!)

Without the candlelight, the darkness was absolute and eerie.

The yellow light to the right was my camera flash shining on someone else's lamp.